Guest Blogging for search engine marketing: How to Build High-quality Links at Scale

In 2014, Matt Cutts, Google’s former Head of
Web Spam, introduced the dying of visitor running a blog as a
white-hat hyperlink constructing tactic.

Can’t bear in mind what he stated? Let me refresh your
reminiscence:

Okay, I’m calling it: in the event you’re utilizing visitor
running a blog as a approach to achieve hyperlinks in 2014, you
need to most likely cease.

But it’s been greater than 4 years since Matt’s prophecy, so the
place will we stand now? Did visitor running a blog die?

Not at all. Thousands of individuals nonetheless use this
technique to construct hyperlinks to their website. It’s simply
that low-quality visitor posting—suppose submitting spun articles
to locations like EzineArticles—is effectively and really
lifeless.

High-quality visitor running a blog, then again, just isn’t
solely alive and effectively, but in addition stays extremely
efficient.

It works so effectively, the truth is, that we use this tactic
to construct top-quality hyperlinks to ahrefs.com at
scale. It took us some time, however we’ve now perfected and
polished our visitor running a blog course of.

In this submit, I’ll share our first-hand expertise with you.
I’ll additionally clarify how we overcame three frequent visitor
running a blog challenges:

How lengthy do you suppose all that may take? 5 hours, perhaps
extra? Even if we worth our time at a really modest charge of
$8/hour, that’s at least $40-$50 value of labor proper there.

Now, you might argue that the typical numbers from simply 5
hundred bloggers don’t imply a lot, because the outcomes are
dependant on so many components. (e.g., weblog measurement,
visitors high quality, the useful resource that you really want to
ship referral visitors to, and many others.)

It’s true, the outcomes do fluctuate loads, and also you
can get a ton of referral visitors out of
your visitor articles. However, as there are such a lot of
variables at play, this can be a subject finest left for one other
submit (let me know in order for you me to write
it).

That apart, let me present you ways to construct tons of
high-quality hyperlinks through visitor running a blog.

1. How to simply discover (and by no means run out of) visitor
running a blog alternatives

Every visitor running a blog information offers the identical
recommendation — use search operators like these to
discover alternatives:

[your_topic] “write for us”

[your_topic] “turn into an writer”

[your_topic] “visitor submit”

[your_topic] “visitor article”

[your_topic] inurl:contribute

and many others..

And you then’re one way or the other supposed to scrape the search outcomes for
these search queries.

Plus, if everybody follows this similar course of, then
everybody finds the identical alternatives. Your pitch might be one
of many many these bloggers obtain each single day. And, likelihood
is, they’ve began to ignore them.

So let me present you a greater approach to discover hundreds of
distinctive and
untapped visitor running a blog alternatives
(in lower than 60 seconds).

If you haven’t used this instrument earlier than, it’s like a
mini search engine for internet content material. It runs on
an unlimited database of just about one
billion pages (up to date each day).

Enter any phrase or phrase, and Content Explorer will chill an
enormous record of internet pages that point out the key
phrase.

Let’s attempt it for “parenting” and see what number of outcomes
we get.

Roughly 90Ok! And these are solely the
pages with the phrase “parenting” of their title tag. (If we open up the search to
embody pages with the phrase “parenting” anyplace on the web page,
we get 800Ok+ outcomes!)

But anyhow, we’re not wanting for a listing of articles
that point out “parenting” of their title. We want a listing
of particular person blogs which write about that subject.

To do that, we’ll choose the “one article per area”
checkbox.

Now we’re down from 90,195 to 26,248 pages, which belong to
particular person blogs.

Hit “Export,” and we now have a listing of 26Ok+ web sites the place we are able to pitch
visitor articles (if we wrote about “parenting”).

But in the event you’re doing issues the white-hat handbook
approach (which is what we advise), you don’t want this many
prospects. The answer? Limit this quantity by making use of a
“Domain Rating” filter.

This will assist slim issues down to a listing of blogs that you
just really feel most comfy pitching.

Editor’s observe

Some individuals suppose {that a} low DR-score is indicative of
a “poisonous hyperlink.”

This couldn’t be farther from the reality.

Domain Rating (DR) measures the hyperlink recognition of a
given web site. It doesn’t inform you if a website is spammy or if
a hyperlink from that web site will harm you.

Google’s “PageRank” system works on a page-by-page foundation.
Which means you will get a hyperlink from a robust web page on a
weak area, and vice-versa.

Pursuing hyperlinks from high-DR websites is usually suggested
as a result of they have an inclination to have extra highly
effective pages. But some low-DR websites will develop in
recognition and attain a better DR, so
your hyperlink could turn into extra priceless over time.

To illustrate how this works, let’s assume that you just’re
within the health area of interest. You can solely visitor submit
for fitness-related blogs, proper? Not so quick. There’s usually a
approach to discover some overlap between two seemingly unrelated
niches, like so:

With this tactic, it’s just about inconceivable to run out of
visitor submit alternatives.

But how are you aware that these blogs settle for visitor
articles?

I imply, whenever you use Google search operators, you’re
concentrating on blogs with “write for us” pages. Therefore, you
might be fairly assured that they settle for visitor posts.

But does this even matter?

Here at Ahrefs, we don’t state that we settle for visitor
articles anyplace on our website. And nor will we encourage
submissions with a “write for us” web page.

But every time somebody reaches out and pitches a superb visitor
article (like Nat did), we publish it.

So in the event you’re certain you may produce improbable
content material, don’t restrict your self to blogs that encourage
visitor articles. Reach out to all related blogs and see if you
will get accepted.

Sidenote.

Many web sites with “write for us” pages are actually beginning
to take away them. Why? They’re sick and uninterested in receiving
awful emails from awful search engine
marketing corporations providing to write them a awful
visitor article.

2. How to write extra high-quality visitor articles in much
less time

We solved the problem of discovering new blogs to visitor submit
for. But as quickly as you load just a few thousand high-quality
blogs right into a spreadsheet, you’re going to face the following
problem:

How do you come up with hundreds of fine article
concepts?

I’m certain you may brainstorm 3–5 good visitor submit concepts
fairly rapidly. But in order for you to scale issues indefinitely,
you’ll want to generate at 3–5 good article concepts per week.

How? Don’t fear; I’ve three nice copywriting methods to make it
easier to out.

1. The Robin Hood approach

Just in case Robin Hood isn’t part of
your cultural folklore, he’s a man who robbed from the wealthy and
gave to the poor. Do you see the place I’m going with this?

So far, I defined how to use Content Explorer to:

Find tens of hundreds of blogs in any area of interest;

Filter for widespread and
lesser-known ones with the assistance of our
Domain Rating (DR) metric.

But right here’s the factor: the favored blogs are widespread
for a purpose, which is that they’ve tons of nice content material.
Lesser-known blogs are much less widespread for the other purpose:
they haven’t but printed a variety of top-notch content
material.

So why not “steal” nice content material concepts from the
highest blogs and provide them to lesser-known blogs?

Editor’s observe

When Tim makes use of the phrase “steal” on this context, he’s
not saying to copy-paste an article from one weblog to one other.
That’s theft, and it will probably land you in massive bother.
Remember that some publishing firms do have
the price range for attorneys.

What must you do as a substitute? Take inspiration from a superb
piece of content material and construct on high of it till it turns
into “distinctive.”

Take any high-DR weblog out of your area of interest and put it
into Content Explorer. Look to see which of their
articles have probably the most social shares, backlinks, or
visitors from Google:

Found article concept that resonates with you? Put a novel spin
on it and submit it to a lesser-known weblog. You’d be shocked how
open these small blogs are to high-quality visitor article
concepts.

I’m certain there’s at least one widespread weblog in your area
of interest with which you should use the “Robin Hood approach” to
discover a goldmine of confirmed subject concepts, proper? If so,
you aren’t going to run out of high-quality visitor article
concepts anytime quickly.

2. The Splintering approach

This beast is so massive and detailed that we had to put fast
hyperlinks to the chapters within the sidebar.

By doing this, we are able to accommodate several types of
reader.

For instance, one individual might want to know “what sort of
hyperlinks transfer the needle.” Another would possibly simply be
wanting for “hyperlink constructing methods.” The fast bounce
hyperlinks permit them each to discover the knowledge they’re
wanting for in seconds.

Do you see the place I’m going with this?

We can break this “hero” article into “splinters” and create
standalone articles from it. We can then submit these “splintered”
articles as visitor posts.

I’ll allow you to in on a secret: we struggled to preserve the
chapters of our hyperlink constructing information as quick as
they’re. The whole information might have simply been 5x
longer.

But if we had been to write particular person articles on every
of the sub-topics, we wouldn’t have to restrict the phrase rely.
This would lead to some distinctive, high-quality articles that we
are able to publish elsewhere.

And better of all, these “splintered articles” wouldn’t take a
lot time to write. We did all of the arduous work already
after we studied and researched the subject for our authentic
information.

Break it into “splinters” and submit each as a visitor article
to one other weblog.

If you’ve already bought that first half lined, it’s even
simpler. Just break your present lengthy and detailed articles into
“splinters.”

3. The Perspective approach

Let’s say we used the Splintering approach to flip “Chapter
3: The way forward for hyperlink constructing” from our information right into a full-fledged
visitor article entitled “The way forward for hyperlink
constructing as of 2018.”

Does that imply that we can’t use this similar subject once more
for writing one other visitor article?

Of course not! We can use the identical
subject many occasions simply by altering the attitude barely, like
so:

I do know these matters would possibly sound a bit awkward,
however you get the concept, proper?

For every visitor submit thought you will have, you may create a
listing of distinctive variations by altering the attitude. Doing
that is a lot simpler than arising with 5–10 distinctive
articles.

You may even use all three methods on this order for the last
word visitor running a blog workflow:

Find confirmed content material concepts (The Robin Hood
Technique);

Break massive matters into subtopics (The Splintering
Technique);

Cover your subtopic from totally different angles (The
Perspective Technique)

3. How to get hyperlinks when all the chances are towards
you

Everything I’ve instructed you to date sounds nice… in
principle.

But as quickly as you’re taking motion and start pitching your
visitor articles to different blogs, you’ll face a variety of
roadblocks:

Bloggers would possibly flip down your (superior) visitor
articles;

The negotiations would possibly final for weeks, and even
months;

Sometimes they could strip your hyperlink(s) from the article
with out discover;

The hyperlinks that you just get don’t “transfer the needle” as
a lot as you’d hoped.

We’ve come throughout all these roadblocks at one level or one
other.

Luckily, we developed just a few problem-solving “hacks” that I
would like to share with you.

Hack 0. Invest within the high quality of your content
material

This hack is listed as quantity #Zero as a result of it’s so
essential.

The entire level of visitor running a blog as a hyperlink
constructing tactic is to get your writing printed on legit blogs
for free. Paying for visitor posts is
a direct violation of
Google’s high quality tips.

Buying or promoting hyperlinks that cross PageRank can
dilute the standard of search outcomes. Participating in hyperlink
schemes violates the Googles Webmaster Guidelines and may
negatively influence a website’s rating in search
outcomes.

Some weblog house owners could also be keen to publish a awful
article in the event you pay them, however they may by no means
submit a awful article for free.

So in order for you a excessive share of bloggers to settle for
your visitor posts, you want to give attention to high quality over
amount. Failure to do that will make it tougher to get printed,
even on smaller blogs.

Building a portfolio of superior articles printed on well-known
{industry} blogs will even make it easier to going ahead. If you’ve
already executed this, use them as “social proof” in your outreach
emails. This would possibly even make it easier to to get the
inexperienced gentle from blogs that normally decline visitor
posts.

To recap: make investments extra time into the standard of your
content material. This will make the remainder of the visitor
running a blog course of a lot simpler.

professional tip

Are you acquainted with the handbook actions given out
by Google’s Web Spam workforce? Then you need to perceive the
dangers of publishing awful visitor articles at scale.

Spun content material is a no-no, as is publishing content
material from low-cost Fiverr writers. But even outdoors these
extremes, content material can nonetheless be dangerous.

The answer is to publish solely tremendous high-quality visitor
articles. Then, ought to Google ever determine to evaluate your
hyperlink profile manually, there’s no likelihood of them seeing
something remotely sketchy. On the opposite hand, publishing
dangerous or mediocre articles will come up suspicions and
doubtlessly lead to punishment.

Hack 1. Pitch extra blogs than you may deal with

As quickly as you attempt to publish your first visitor article,
you’re going to understand that it doesn’t occur in a day.
Publishing your visitor submit simply isn’t normally at the highest
of the blogger’s todo record.

So when you’re ready for them to reply, why not pitch just a few
different bloggers within the meantime?

I’m not speaking about pitching them a distinct article, both.
Pitch the identical article that you just already promised to the
primary blogger. That approach, ought to the primary blogger
decline your submission (or fails to reply), it gained’t matter.
You’ll have a queue of different bloggers keen to publish it.

But what if that first blogger replies positively?

Even higher. Just inform the reality:

“Sorry, you weren’t responding for
just a few days, so one other weblog took this text
thought.

But don’t fear, I’m certain I can recommend one thing else
for you that might be simply pretty much as good.

I’ll be in contact with extra article concepts
shortly.”

Sometimes, this may make them extra keen to settle for your
subsequent pitch. Why? Because they now know that different
bloggers are lining up to publish your visitor posts. This proves
that you just aren’t pitching junk.

So my suggestion is to ship the identical pitch to 5–7 blogs.
You can then provide the article to whoever replies first (or has
the best weblog, in the event you get numerous replies).

That’s the way you create a queue of bloggers ready for your
visitor articles.

NOTE. This “hack”
takes inspiration from a exceptional e book referred to as Oversubscribed by Daniel
Priestley. It teaches you the advantages of producing extra
demand than you may provide. Not learn it? Buy it right here.

Hack 2. Link to your different printed visitor posts

It’s no secret that many weblog house owners greedily hoard
outgoing hyperlinks. They scrupulously hand them out to solely
probably the most deserving of internet sites. *cough*
Wikipedia! *cough*

Some do that as a result of they’re afraid that Google will
punish them for linking out an excessive amount of (or for linking
to a “dangerous” web site). Others suppose that by not linking out
at all, their website will rank greater.

But there’s no denying that for some, lazy SEOs are the trigger.
Yes, I’m speaking about those that spoil bloggers by providing
beneficiant sums of cash in return for hyperlinks.

So don’t be too upset if a blogger says that you could’t
hyperlink to your website in your visitor submission—it occurs to
everybody.

Sidenote.

Some bloggers will take away your hyperlink(s) out of your
printed article with out warning. Be cautious of this. You can
preserve tabs on any misplaced hyperlinks simply with Ahrefs
Alerts.

But right here’s a enjoyable commentary:

Bloggers hate it whenever you hyperlink to your
individual internet properties. But they’re usually high-quality
with you linking elsewhere.

You can use this reality to your benefit.

Remember the PageRank idea? The extra hyperlinks that time
to a web page, the stronger a hyperlink
from that web page is.

So you probably have a bunch of dwell visitor articles that
hyperlink to your web site, construct so-called “tier 2” hyperlinks
to them. How? By linking to them out of your different visitor
posts. This will increase the ability of tier 1 hyperlinks:

But the enjoyable doesn’t finish there!

You ought to then attain out to the weblog proprietor and
clarify that you just’ve landed them a juicy backlink from a high
quality weblog. This might be music to their ears, they usually’ll
little question be glad to oblige must you ever ask them to return
the favor in future.

PROTIP

You might additionally hyperlink out to these in your {industry}
that you just’d love to befriend, then attain out and inform them
concerning the hyperlink.

Giving worth up entrance is a superb catalyst for long-term
relationships, particularly in the event you don’t count on
something in return instantly. What’s extra, must you later
determine that you really want to write a visitor submit for their
weblog, they are going to be more likely to say “sure.”

Hack 3. Write for blogs which have by no means linked to you
earlier than

It’s fairly straightforward to safe one other visitor submit on
a weblog for which you’ve already written. But it’s a lot tougher
to persuade a brand new weblog to publish your work.

So why hassle pursuing new blogs at all? Why not simply turn
into a daily contributor to an present weblog?

Well, in accordance to typical search engine
marketing knowledge, a second hyperlink from the identical
web site has much less weight than a hyperlink from a brand new
referring area.

That’s why most SEOs suggest prioritizing the constructing of
hyperlinks from new referring domains…

But how are you aware which of those websites have by no means
linked to you earlier than?

Simple. Use the “spotlight unlinked domains” function.

Just enter your area, and it’ll spotlight the websites which are
but to hyperlink to you.

PROTIP

Do you need a record of solely these websites? Hit “export” and
choose “solely highlighted unlinked domains.”

This is a good way to uncover alternatives to get hyperlinks
from new referring domains.

But how strict must you be with this concept? Should you decline
each provide to write one other visitor submit for the identical
website?

Well, Google’s PageRank seems to be at backlinks between pages,
not web sites. So you probably have the chance to turn into a daily
contributor to a top-notch weblog, go for it! Just just be sure
you’re not linking to the identical pages in your web site from
every new visitor article.

Hack 4. Rewrite your “writer bio” every now and then

This final hack doesn’t have any definitive proof behind it.
Just consider it as a chunk of search engine
marketing recommendation based mostly on frequent
sense (and my intestine feeling).

Take a glance at this screenshot from Ahrefs:

You can see that this girl has used the identical (phrase for
phrase) writer bio in each visitor submit she’s written.

I don’t suppose I’ve seen any patents round this, however it
simply feels unsuitable to give a variety of weight to such teams
of hyperlinks. I imply, regardless of coming from totally different
web sites, all of them come from the identical paragraph of textual
content, with the identical anchor textual content and level to the
identical web page.

Perhaps I’m utterly unsuitable with this assumption? But I
nonetheless suppose it is smart to hyperlink out to pages apart
from your homepage out of your writer bio, at least typically. You
also needs to change up the copy of your bio and the anchor textual
content you utilize to hyperlink to your web site.

This ought to assist to scale back the possibilities of Google
treating these hyperlinks as unimportant.

Congratulations on getting to the very finish of this
information!

As promised, I shared the whole lot that our workforce has
discovered about visitor running a blog over the previous few
years. I hope that this information will assist take your visitor
running a blog abilities to an entire new stage.

Now, I’d love to study from you! Is there something you might
share about your individual visitor posting expertise that I didn’t
point out on this information? Let me know within the feedback.